Ripe: A Fresh Colorful Approach to Fruits and Vegetables showcases Cheryl Sternman Rule’s pithy wit and Paulette Phlipot’s vibrant images. But produce — in all its weird and wonderful glory — gets top billing in this cookbook.

August is THE birthday month in our house. And this is the time of year when my son celebrates his birthday with a group of kids he’s known since birth. Some children may lament a summer birthday (all your buddies are on vacation, so party plans often get tabled until back-to-school time). Here’s 12 reasons […]

It took a teenager from Wyomissing, PA who had never heard of Alice Waters to figure out what was missing on the culinary scene in Berkeley. When Karen Rogers landed at UC Berkeley in 2005 she couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a cooking club on campus. So she started one. But the Cal Cooking Club […]

Lois De Domenico knows a thing or two about food. Lois is the co-creator of Rice-A-Roni, the iconic convenience food remembered around the country as The San Francisco Treat. That’s why the folks at Brookdale Senior Living, one of the nation’s largest operators of senior living communities in the U.S., asked her to act as […]

Kudos to Samin Nosrat and her crew for raising $22,421.09 at a bakesale for Haiti in the Bay Area last Saturday. An outpouring of cupcakes and cash came from professional chefs and home cooks in events held at three community-minded food venues: Pizzaiolo in Oakland, Gioia Pizzeria in North Berkeley, and Bi-Rite Market in San […]

Seem to have a food-related volunteer theme emerging this week. Not my intention but just going to run with it. If ever there was a time to ignore the imperative Think Global, Act Local, this is it. Don’t you agree? As I explained to my son on this week’s MLK Day of Service, we’re thinking […]

Fresh starts. New adventures. The whole unexplored landscape that is the year ahead. I welcome January, when anything seems possible. Except, of course, when there’s transition week. Anyone else having a transition week? Come on, you know you are. I can see it in my son as he struggles to get back in synch with […]

It’s always tricky to write about a pal’s book, you don’t want to come off sounding like a fawning friend, frankly. So, in the case of My Nepenthe by Romney “Nani” Steele, I’m going to let others hand out the praise. Sunset describes Nani’s cookbook-cum-memoir as “a valentine to one of the most beautiful places […]

Photo by Flickr user mbgrigby used under the Creative Commons license. So it’s orientation time for the sixth graders, a sweet and chatty bunch, at the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, where I volunteer each week. Last Friday, head kitchen teacher Esther Cook (yes, Ms. Cook is her real name) began by engaging the students in […]

The Lemon Lady needs a new nickname, methinks. Anna Chan, 37, has outgrown the title, which doesn’t begin to describe the difference this anti-hunger activist has made in less than a year in her one-woman campaign to get fresh produce into the mouths of people in need in her community. This stay-at-home mom from Clayton, […]

Flickr photo by jcmurty used under the Creative Commons license. When you pop in and out of your homeland once or twice a year, as I do, it’s pretty easy to pick up on trends since you last touched down. I was in Sydney for a month this past Southern Hemisphere summer, that’s December-January for […]

I’ve been waxing on a lot lately in this space about food films and food books. And I’ve been digging doing blogs about resourceful residents who grow and forage in the urban jungle. But it’s time to talk about cooking again. The weather has turned positively balmy in Berkeley this week and we’re heading into […]

Photo: Sarah Henry Spring Break plans went pear-shaped, work and other obligations thwarted my best efforts to plan a mini-break with my son. I was feeling a bit sorry for him (truth be told: both of us). We were just going to tool around town during his week off. It didn’t help that others in […]

So my ten-year-old plays ball for the Berkeley Bears. Last weekend, his team went up against the San Francisco Falcons. It would have been just another baseball game on a gorgeous spring day except he played against his great mate from the mamas group we started right after the kids were born. Photo: Yuriko Gamo […]